PMJAY: Healthcare services to Transgender Persons

Context 

The National Health Authority (NHA) and the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for providing holistic health services to transgender persons under Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY).

Key-Points

• After this agreement, the holder of the Transgender Certificate issued by the National Portal for Transgender Persons across the country will get the benefit of all health facilities. 
• All the empaneled hospitals of AB-PMAJY will provide free treatment to transgenders where special packages will be available.
• Under AB-PMAJY, every eligible person gets a health insurance cover of up to Rs 5 lakh every year.
• Apart from this, special packages are also being prepared for the transgender category, which will also include special packages like gender reassignment surgery (SRS) and treatment for transgenders.

About Ayushman Bharat PMJAY

• The Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana is a component of the umbrella health scheme (Ayushman Bharat). 
• The scheme was launched in September 2018 and recommended by the National Health Policy 2017, to achieve the vision of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
• It is the largest health insurance scheme in the world to be funded by a government. 
• It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme having a central sector component under Ayushman Bharat Mission.
• PM-JAY was earlier known as the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) before being rechristened. 
• It subsumed the then-existing Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) which had been launched in 2008. 
• It covers the expenses for secondary and many tertiary health care services.
• PM-JAY scheme would provide poor, deprived rural families and identified occupational categories of urban workers’ families as per the latest Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) data (approx. 50 crore beneficiaries) with health benefit cover of Rs Five Lakhs per family per year at free of cost. 
• The health benefits under the scheme include more than 1,350 medical packages covering surgery, medical and daycare treatments, cost of medicines and diagnostics.